Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Foer, Jonathan Safran. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Mariner Books, 2006. $13.95. 978-0618711659 (pap.); Houghton, 2005. $24.95. ISBN 978-0618329700.
Genre: Realistic fiction, Contemporary historical fiction
Themes: A child coping with loss, absence and grief, family flashbacks to the Holocaust, resilience of the human spirit - all set against the horror of September 11, 2001 in New York City.
Author information: Jonathan Safran Foer was born in 1977 and grew up in Washington D.C. He attended Princeton, where he studied philosophy. According to his thesis advisor, Joyce Carol Oates, Safran Foer is a natural surrealist. His bestselling debut novel, Everything is Illuminated (published when he was just 25) won numerous awards. Safran Foer says, “A book is a little sculpture. The choice of fonts, the size of the margins, the typography all influence the way the book is read. I consciously wanted to think about that, wanted to have the book really be something you hold in your hands, not just a vehicle for words. So I was involved in every step of the design of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.” Safran Foer and his wife, writer Nicole Krauss, and their young son live in Brooklyn, New York.
Plot Summary: Oskar Schell is an inventor, Francophile, tambourine player, Shakespearean actor, jeweler, pacifist. He is nine years old. And he is on an urgent, secret search through the five boroughs of New York to find the lock that fits a mysterious key belonging to his father, who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center. This quest intertwines with the story of his grandparents whose lives were blighted by the firebombing of Dresden during World War II.
Booktalk: Oskar Schell is the endearing, exasperating, and hilarious nine-year-old narrator of this novel. But Oskar's boots, as he likes to say, are very heavy - his father, whom he worshipped, perished in the World Trade Center. He careens from Central Park West to Coney Island to Harlem, without his mother's knowledge, on his search for the lock that will fit the key that he finds a year after his father died. The key's container is labeled “Black” and, with flawless kid logic, Oskar decides to find everyone in New York City with the last name of Black. Along the way he is always dreaming up inventions to keep those he loves safe from harm. What about a birdseed shirt to let you fly far away? “I could invent a teakettle that reads in Dad's voice, so I could fall asleep.” His goal is hopeful, but his grandparents stories from the Holocaust speak a loud warning of those who've lost loved ones before. Finally, Oskar imagines a “special drain that would be underneath every pillow in New York,” collecting the tears of people who cry themselves to sleep and funneling them into the Central Park reservoir.
Curriculum tie-ins:
Teacher's guide
The American Place Theatre: Literature to Life. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, Teacher's Resource Guide. View site below for more discussion questions and activities.
Literature
Discuss the meaning of the title Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close:
- Is it a descriptive title? If so, what do you think it is describing- a person, an emotion, an idea?
- Do “extremely” and “incredibly” mean the same thing? How do they differ?
- Can you, the students, revise the title of the book to make it about you? Keep the words “extremely” and “incredibly” but add in adjectives that describes yourselves - (i.e. if this book were about me, it would be titled Extremely Smart and Incredibly Tall)
- Discuss after reading the following dialogue (pages 170 - 171 paperback edition). O. “I miss Dad.” M. “So do I.”..... to end of page 171 “I would have chosen you!”
Discuss:
- How does Oscar deal with his sadness?
- How does his mother deal with her sadness?
- Can people have different ways of grieving?
- What does the last quote from Oskar mean? Why did he say this?
Resource Guide:
Santa Monica Reads Resource Guide. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. View the guide for questions and novel background.
Art & Graphics:
- Discuss the graphic elements in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Do they add or detract from the story? Why or why not?
- What is your reaction to the final series of photographs at the book's conclusion?
Drama
This title has been optioned for a film. What aspects of the novel lend themselves to cinematic treatment?
If you loved this, you'll like:
- Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Doubleday, 2003.
- Maynard, Joyce. The Usual Rules. St. Martin's Press, 2003.
- Portraits of Grief from the New York Times. Time Books, 2002.
- Spiegelman, Art. In the Shadow of the Towers. Viking, 2004.
Another book by this author:
Foer, Jonathan Safran. Everything is Illuminated. Houghton Mifflin, 2002.
Additional Resources:
- Audio Cassette: Recorded Books (August 2005) ISBN-10: 1402537840
- Audio CD: Recorded Books (April 2005) ISBN-10: 1419328794
- Audio Download
About the author:
- New York Times. The Rescue Artist by Deborah Solomon Feb. 27, 2005
- The Loft Literary Center: Jonathan Safran Foer Talking Volumes Book Club Guides courtesy of the Edelstein-Keller endowment in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Minnesota.
About September 11th:
The September 11 Digital Archive. “The September 11 Digital Archive uses electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the history of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania and the public responses to them.”
